Kansai Yamamoto

Liberty of London

On our visit to London, we explored the old tudor building of Liberty, looking at the floral prints and designer garments.

There were many Tana Lawn fabric prints.

 Many of the prints are rather traditional and detailed in design, however there is a small range of more modern and simple designs.

The fabrics sold are at a high quality and are very expensive. Some of the fabrics there could both be sold as just fabric or part of a garment or interior.

Capel V Tana Lawn

For instance, some of the fabrics were used to decorate mannequins (boosting up the cost to around £2000).

The floral prints are all printed on Tana Lawn.
Tana Lawn is a traditional Liberty fabric created out of pure cotton and a very fine thread count.

Mirabelle B Tana Lawn 

The Capel V Tana Lawn print uses a very simple print design which uses a very small range of colours, and outline studies of flowers. The shape of the flowers are fairly accurate compared to the lack of colour and tone, however the centers of the flowers are rather simple.

The Mirabelle B Tana Lawn print in comparison to Capel V, is more vivid in colour and has a more simple modern approach to the layout of the design. However, the colour scheme is close to natural, keeping to a slightly traditional style.

In Liberty's, I had come across a print on a garment, which reminded me of the decoration on some of the clothing in the 'Tudors, Stuarts, and The Russian Tsars' exhibition; it is embellished with gold in a traditional royal style of a complex pattern.

This design uses small dotted marks which reminds me of seeds. It helps add to the busyness of the floral pattern, and show the movement and shape of the plant.

In contrast to Capel V, this design incorporates the blue background within the flower, whereas the Capel V print is filled in white with a different shade of purple for the outlines.

All three of these prints are very different in appearance, however, they all follow the design of having at least two types of flower and also include stems and leaves, achieving a more full look.

London

On Thursday 13th June, 2013, we all all went on a trip to the V&A to see the Bowie Is and Treasures exhibition and then followed by a visit to the Liberty shop.

It was our chance to explore many elements of textiles and fashion before coming up with our official A2 title for textiles.

I have quite a few ideas on what I could focus on thanks to the inspiration from the David Bowie and Treasures exhibition; I'm rather interested in how people portray themselves, or disguise themselves by becoming something else. I also quite like the unknown of what happened in the past (linking to the royals) and also the japanese connection with David Bowie and how he incorporates traditional japanese designs in his outfits and characters (Ziggy Stardust).